The International Schools Review Forum

Just curious...

How many American-style standardized tests do the students take at your school? I'm not talking about IB exams, but rather fill-in-the-bubble Common Core type tests.

Currently none.
Past schools, typically one, sometimes none.

Many NC ISs including the BSs have selected response assessments. Usually none, sometimes one given at the end of the year. Less often at the start of the year. A rare number do two one at the beginning and one at the end of the year. ISs that care about rankings are more likely to use standardized assessments.

Hmm... I feel like my school is so out of the ordinary, then, that it would reveal where I work if I say how many times we do standardized tests each year.

Sounds like this is NOT normal for international schools.

We do MAP testing in the fall and the spring every year.

How do teachers feel about the MAP test? How is it used? Just for data, or to evaluate teachers?

@chilagringa

I currently work in a DS and we use MAPS three times a year. That data is data is generally used to track student growth. However, as an educator you WILL be judged if there are negative trends amongst your students. I think that is the nature of any information that is being collected from a class. The collection of data is there for the primary reason to monitor students but if there are undesirable results admin won't be happy. That being said, I have found MAP testing to be a really useful tool in building student ownership of their growth. Students set their own goals and have middle of the year and end of the year opportunities to meet those goals.

@chilagringa

Its more used as a diagnostic growth instrument. The surprising part is that scores arent shared with parents as commonly as they would be in DE. A general pattern of low growth may be cause for concern in leadership that would reflect back to an IT. You dont have anywhere near the issues found with high stakes testing you find in DE though. ITs are less likely to be career IT at any particular IS, and a low performing IT is going to have other identifiers and issues outside of their MAPS results.